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About this blog: I am a native of Alameda County, grew up in Pleasanton and currently live in the house I grew up in that is more than 100 years old. I spent 39 years in the daily newspaper business and wrote a column for more than 25 years in add... (More)

About this blog: I am a native of Alameda County, grew up in Pleasanton and currently live in the house I grew up in that is more than 100 years old. I spent 39 years in the daily newspaper business and wrote a column for more than 25 years in addition to writing editorials for more than 15 years. I have served as a director of many non-profits in the Valley and the broader Bay Area and currently serve as chair of Teen Esteem and on the advisory board of Shepherd?s Gate. I also served as founding chair of Heart for Africa and have travelled to Africa seven times to serve on mission trips. My wife, Betty Gail, has taught at Amador Valley High (from where we both graduated) since 1981. She and I both graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, as did both of my parents and my three siblings. Given that Cal tradition, our daughter went south to the University of Southern California and graduated with a degree in international relations. Since graduation, she has taken three mission trips and will be serving in the Philippines for nine months starting in September. (Hide)

Rising at O-dark 30

Uploaded: Mar 20, 2012

Was it the same geniuses who decided sunlight at 7:30 p.m. is better than light at 7 a.m. on March 15 who also gave us the awful CFL light bulbs?
Both are supposed to save energy. My experience, having installed the hazardous waste-laden CFLs in my home, is that they fail much more quickly than the incandescent bulbs that the greenies in our government have banned. Instead of simply tossing a burned out bulb in the trashsomething that was a relatively rare occurrenceI now must transport a burned-out CFL to a suitable disposal site.
I have two burned out bulbs that I've left in place to say nothing of the three others that I've replaced and taken to a suitable resting place. Some outfit is making plenty of money and the people are getting hung out to pay.
Such seems to be the green world.
Just wait until we get to Gov. Jerry's 30-plus percent renewal powerno matter what the price. What will that do to what tiny energy-intensive manufacturing base this state has?
And, of course, given the challenges with water in this state, more water utilities are embracing reverse osmosis treatments or considering desalinization plants to deal with salty sea water or brackish Delta waters to expand reliable water supplies.
All require the energy-intensive treatments to clean the water and the costs of the electricity will simply be passed along to ratepayers as a necessary cost of doing business.
If the state had a rational energy policy that included an economic analysis instead of dreaming that humans can change weatherit would help California regain its economic edge. The innovation growing out of Silicon Valley is awesomeif you have the skills and/or money to play. If you don't, good luck.
Now help me understand the rationale for the ever-earlier daylight savings time. Once upon a time, it was mid-April. Now it's mid-March.
Just about the time that there was daylight appearing at 06:30, the policy czars advance it an hour so it's really dark when it's time to get up. It feels much more comfortable to simply roll over.
So what is driving this other than over-the-top green philosophy? When we wrote about this more than 25 years ago, it was corporations that benefit from daylight after workBBQ and briquette manufacturers, outdoor furniture, etc.that were the big backers.
Given the normal temps in mid-March (how did you enjoy the Saturday winds from the north?), the chances of outdoor cooking or diningwith traditional charcoal barbequesare whistling in the mid-March winds. There's a reason that my normal spring sports attire included a down ski parka when I was covering a track meet.
This year, January and February, have been an exception. I've enjoyed some patio time relaxing looking at the brown (not the normal green hills) in balmy conditions.
The highlight was a couple of weeks ago when I joined guys from my church to golf in shorts and shirt-sleeves in Santa Cruz on March 9. The weather since has returned to whatever passes for normal.

Posted by BobB,
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood,
on Mar 20, 2012 at 8:40 amBobB is a registered user.

Tim,

You haven't presented any evidence that CFL lights don't save energy or have short lifespans. You just related one experience (your own) as evidence. In statistics 101 we all learned that that is anecdotal evidence and is not statistically significant. Just google some of the many studies of lifespans of modern lights (LEDs are even better) and you can find plenty of scientific, statistical studies to show that the lifespans are much longer than older incandescent bulbs. They also use a lot less energy. This isn't some kind of conspiracy.

"instead of dreaming that humans can change weather"

Someone is proposing to change the weather? Maybe you're talking about the climate? Are you claiming that humans can or can't change the climate? Scientific evidence?

I was going to answer the business about daylight saving time, but then I realized I might not be getting the joke. It isn't April fools day (I had to check that). You're not serious about this stuff, are you?

Posted by SteveP,
a resident of Parkside,
on Mar 20, 2012 at 8:58 amSteveP is a registered user.

You can't find many folks defending CFL's anymore---they are filled with toxic mercury, they buzz or hum, give off a harsh, glaring light and are not as effient as LED's. The problem is, LED's are so damn expensive, which is part of the reason many people feel the goal of greenies and climate witch doctors is just to separate you from your money by guilting the gullible into shelling out big bucks to 'save the environment'. What a crock....especially now that local building codes require new construction and remodels to subsidize these opportunists.

Posted by BobB,
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood,
on Mar 20, 2012 at 9:49 amBobB is a registered user.

"You can't find many folks defending CFL's anymore"

I'm still seeing plenty. I just googled it, there seem to be a lot of them. I know the companies selling the light bulbs are making a profit from them (nothing wrong with that), but these are some of the same companies that were selling us incandescent light bulbs too.

I'm right next to a CFL and even if I put my ear next to it, I can't hear any "buzz or hum". There is a small amount of mercury in them, so you need to dispose of them properly, but they last much longer, so you don't have to replace them frequently. I agree, LEDs are more efficient and economies of scale will surely bring prices down.

About the climate change stuff, reasonable people can disagree with the conclusions and validity of studies, but you guys seems to be saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that we shouldn't even bother to study it. We should just conclude that man's activities could never affect the climate, based on blind faith? Have I got that right? Faith based science?

And Tim,

"Was it the same geniuses who decided sunlight at 7:30 p.m. is better than light at 7 a.m. on March 15 who also gave us the awful CFL light bulbs?"

My understanding was that the founding father Benjamin Franklin first proposed daylight savings time.